D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm curious. How many DMs have you run across that actually meet your personal criteria here? That actually do what you say you want to the degree that is acceptable to you?

Every DM I've had for 4e (so something like half a dozen). My current 5e DM. Most of the DMs I had for PF1e. The two Dungeon World/PbtA-homebrew GMs. The two 13A DMs (though one of them flaked on us for no reason we could ever determine). The two SR5e GMs.

As noted, several DMs I worked with for too little time because the games fell through, so for them I didn't get enough time to conclusively say one way or the other. Most of those were PF1e/3.5e or 5e, but that's simply what most people were offering to run at the time I was looking, so there's no meaning to them being common.

I've only had two DMs I genuinely lost trust in during the course of the game. Of course, some of that is because if I see red flags before the rubber hits the road, there's a very good chance I just bow out or never engage in the first place.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Or...maybe attention to detail matters to you?

Can you try giving someone in this thread who doesn't agree with you the benefit of the doubt?

Unless and until I start seeing others being willing to do the same for me? No. I'm rather tired of being required to be respectful when numerous other people refuse to.

@Emerikol for example has been quite respectful despite our disagreements. At least as far as I can tell, they have had no problem with my responses to them. Why do you think that might be?

 

[Scribe]

Heh. The word "retcon" exists for a reason.

Inflated Ego.

 

[Clint_L]

Difference in focus.

IME players (often including me when on that side of the screen) almost exclusively focus on what benefits them right here and right now. The only person at the table who even considers the long-term good of the campaign is the DM, who has to put that consideration up against what the players are asking for in the moment.

Now in a one-shot game this doesn't matter. But in a situation where you have to live with a ruling for potentially years, ignoring the long-term effects of that ruling seems - literally and figuratively - shortsighted.

I find it pretty hard to argue with you when it comes to long-term campaigns. We can talk all the theory we want, but you've been running one campaign for the better part of two decades, and playing in another that is, what, more than forty years in? Can't really debate that kind of experience.

 

[pemerton]

Thraes, my campaign world, is not Astra. Nor is it Middle Earth, Forgotten Realms, Eberron or Dark Sun. It's my own creation that has had it's history shaped in part by player decisions of decades of campaigns. A happy-go-lucky tinker gnome artificer by the name Sprocket might be a fun character for my game but they wouldn't fit in a Dark Sun campaign where gnomes don't exist.

I hope you and @Crimson Longinus can see that "Join us to play a Star Trek game!" or "Join us to play a Middle Earth game!" are requests that carry more cultural and aesthetic weight than "Join us to play a Thraes game!" or "Join us to play an Artra game!"

EDIT:

To my mind, there's a clear distinction in playing a game based on an IP of shared familiarity and one in which the DM is the originator of the setting.

Yes, agreed.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The books (for 5.0) straight-up explicitly say that humans/elves/etc. are present in effectively all settings, meaning they are instructing DMs they aren't allowed to not use those tools. That's not something a "toolbox" should ever dodo--period.

Do they actually say that (I honestly do not know)? That would be pretty short-sighted of them (WotC) in my view.
How do you reconcile the above (should it exist) with what is stated in the DMG where it very matter of factly states the DM is the master of the setting and decides what is allowed and what isn't?

 

[pemerton]

How much interest do they have to have for you to believe that game needs players?

Assuming we're talking about a game where the fiction is meant to matter not just as a crucible for play (in the dungeon-crawling style), but as something carrying aesthetic weight in its own right, then I expect the participants to be creative equals.

They have different roles - different bits of the fiction that they are responsible for. The players are responsible for the play of their PCs. If the GM has so little interest that they think it is indifferent whether the player brings this or that to the table, I don't see that as adopting the perspective of creative equality.

Setting should come before character in my view. Just like real life.

I'm with @EzekielRaiden in not knowing what this is meant to mean, taken literally. I mean, actual people are not characters and the world we all live in is not a setting.

But in any event, you are not articulating here a vision of creative equality.

For my part, I expect the players, in creating their characters, to add to the setting. This might be as modest as a family or a home, or as big as a town sacked by Gnolls, from which the character is now a refugee, or an order of knights (or mages, or . . ) to which the PC belongs.

 

[Lanefan]

There's two problems with that.

1. "They" aren't making bad choices. A solitary one of them is making a bad choice and pulling everyone else along with the consequences,

Good. Someone's gotta stir the pot sometimes.

usually a character they were expected to work with primarily of PC Glow.

2. Even if they all are, its entirely possible that the campaign effectively ends right there, right now, which may not have been what they expected, nor what the GM wanted, unless he goes through a bunch of justification backflips to make it happen. GMs don't necessarily set up campaigns with the assumption the whole player group will abruptly lose their minds.

The campaign ends there only if the PCs manage to run themselves into a TPK, and TPKs are nearly impossible as long as at least one PC thinks to - and is able to - hightail it out of there when things go sideways (or stays behind to begin with; I've seen this happen, where one PC stays at the inn while everyone else goes to some big meeting).

Or, maybe the PCs in their gonzo-ness do manage to knock off the Evil King on first meeting. Sure this might mess up the DM's storyboard, but so what? A DM who can't handle such major twists will either learn to roll with them or learn to take precautions such that they can't so easily happen (in this case, that would mean surrounding the Evil King with enough guards that attacking would be suicide, and making this clear to the PCs/players).

 

[pemerton]

Who cares if a DM's setting is derivative? Now.it just sounds like you're making value judgements about other people's preferences.

Well, the more derivative a setting, the less compelling the argument about how it expresses a particular vision etc.

 

[AnotherGuy]

One habit I've gotten into over the years is never stating my character's actions as a question; I always frame them as a statement. I ask questions that seem reasonable, but I never frame anything as something like "Can my character meet the king?" I always say "My character walks into the castle to meet the king." The DM can then frame a complication that is encountered.

It helps establish a framework that I don't expect the DM to give me permission to realize my character's intent, I expect them simply to tell me what would make it challenging.

Yeah I enjoy this style because of the quickened pace and it brings the challenges to the fore. Our table (including myself) don't always run it smoothly but yeah this style keeps the DM on their toes